This paper introduces into the analysis the concept of the ambassador of people with disability in the workplace. A kind and friendly person in the workplace, who creates a positive atmosphere around people with disabilities, may play a crucial role in their adaptation on the open labor market. Presence of such a person is especially important in entities that did not previously employ people with disabilities. It is vital that employers who would like to employ people with disability possess knowledge about demographic and professional characteristics that predispose employees to perform this special role. On the one hand, in this article we attempted to evaluate the differentiation in the perception of the issue of disability due to demographic and professional characteristics of respondents, and, on the other hand, to identify features that favor being an “ambassador of people with disabilities” in the workplace. The study was conducted in 2019 on the representative samples of Internet users from 8 European countries using Computer-Assisted Internet Interviews. For the purposes of the study, we used the Attitudes to Disability Scale WHOQOL Group test and a proprietary questionnaire. As for the methods of analysis, we relied on the classical analysis of variance and logistic regression. The conducted study showed that the perception of the issue of disability is significantly related to demographic and professional characteristics of respondents, and that the role of the ambassador is the most appropriate for a middle-aged woman with a good knowledge of disability issues, indecisive in the workplace.

Full inclusion of people with disabilities means their full participation in community life and the same opportunities to work and spend their free time that other members of the community have. This also applies to travel and tourism. Offers available to people with various types of disabilities are seldom adapted to their needs. They face numerous barriers and obstacles when travelling or at their destination. The article presents selected results from an international comparative study concerning travel of people with sensory disabilities. The study was carried out in the first quarter of 2022 using the PAPI method on a group of 131 respondents from Poland, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal. To analyse the results, we relied on statistical inference using an independent two-sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance. Tests of the equality of two means were preceded by Levene’s test for homogeneity of variances. According to the study, people with sensory disabilities can see many barriers to travel that pose a significant constraint on their activity. These barriers vary depending on the type of disability, gender or the country of origin of the respondent, but the list of indications often includes the need to train service staff in the specific needs of people with different types of disabilities. Taking into account development opportunities that people with disabilities create for the tourism industry, including people with sensory disabilities who are frequently overlooked, it is worth considering measures aimed at improving knowledge and skills in this area in the future.

The issue of employing people with disabilities is crucial from both a social and economic perspective, and is often influenced by the social perception of this group of people. In this article, we attempted to examine attitudes towards the disabled in eight European countries by using one of the most popular tools that measures the perception of such people in everyday life—the Attitudes to Disability Scale (ADS) developed by the WHOQOL Group. We checked the general attitude towards disability according to the ADS scale and the specific perception of disability in the workplace using a scale created ad hoc. The research was conducted in 2019 using the CAWI (computer-assisted web interview) method on representative samples of Internet users, whereas the analysis methods included the measurement reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The obtained results allow for the acceptance of the measurement model of the ADS scale in the societies of the analyzed countries. No significant differences were found between models created for people with a disability experience (a group from the WHOQOL Group research) and without such experience. The measurement using the original ADS scale factor structure is of good reliability, whereas CFA is of good fit. We also examined the impact of ADS scale factors on the perception of people with disabilities in the workplace using the SEM model, and obtained good fit of the model. The results show that the dimensions of perception, such as inclusion, discrimination and prospects, affect the evaluation of people with disabilities in the workplace.

Burnout has serious consequences both for individuals and the organizations they work in. The issue generates interest among psychologist and management professionals and-according to the subject literature-there is a growing demand for helping those professional groups who face the risk of experiencing the negative effects of an exhausting working life. The aim of this paper is to characterize the phenomenon of burnout in Poland in the selected professional groups. The primary research was conducted on June and July 2017 on the group of 153 people working in the following areas: healthcare, education, higher education. Two types of questionnaire were used for the purpose of this research. The first was an LBQ Burnout Questionnaire, which is an adaptation of an Italian Link Burnout Questionnaire. The other questionnaire was originally devised by the authors to assess the perception of the phenomenon among Polish employees. The article presents the results concerning all the methods used during research and compared the results of the LBQ and the original questionnaire.

Nurses constitute a professional group exposed to a high risk of stress and occupational burnout. Fewer nurses are recruited every year and the ever higher age of those professionally active is alarming. This article presents the results of international comparative studies from 2018 and 2019 involving Polish and German nurses (747 people) dedicated to the perception of aspects of nurses’ work in terms of the risk of excessive stress and burnout and possible preventive measures. Using a proprietary questionnaire, the authors evaluated differences in the perception of the nursing profession in Poland and Germany, as well as in terms of seniority or decision-making. Next, the relationship between the perception of work specificity and opinions about professional risks and possible preventive measures was evaluated. The analysis used the Mann-Whitney U test and correlation analysis of the questions. Using exploratory factor analysis, the number of dimensions describing the nursing profession was reduced from 16 to four related to (1) workload, (2) job satisfaction, (3) atmosphere in the organisation and (4) sense of control over one’s own work. The results showed statistically significant differences in the perception of professional specificity and risks according to the analysed characteristics.